What’s really going on behind the curtain
Most people on earth able to have internet are city dwellers and would look around and cry ”OVERPOPULATION”. Every aspect of our existence points to the ‘fact’ that there simply are too many people on earth. News channels echo that ecosystems are failing, food production and distribution is taking strain, and over populated cities are overflowing with crime and homelessness; the anecdotal evidence clearly shown on video and social media feeds.
But what if I tell you that some of it is ‘true’ and that other ‘facts’ are merely perception and carefully framing; either way, what you witness is all by design? Do incentives drive behavior, and destructive short-term focused behavior at that? That we have organizations on earth structured to ensure that agendas like drug use, homelessness, rioting, abortion, separation of groups, isolation of individuals, the loneliness epidemic, food scarcity, sickness and wars prevail – and that there is massive money in those agendas? And that lobbyists are paid fortunes to ensure the seeds of this instability are structurally enshrined in federal, county and municipal law.
Hard to find truth
To the big news agencies, good news is boring. Bad news sells, and outrage drives viewer count and lively interactions.
We simply do not know that the world is in significantly better shape today than at any point in the past. It takes boring research not found in a news feed. In the 1950s when we were a ‘shockingly’ high number of 2.5 billion people, having grown by a billion (56%) from 1.6 billion in 1900, we were told we would starve and face global famine. Moreover, in 1900 up to 66% of the world live in “extreme poverty” (defined as living on less than $1 a day adjusted for purchasing power and inflation) and surely more people with less food to share would cause many to die. Yet, today, the global population of 8 billion has tripled since 1950 and just 9% of the world live in extreme poverty ($1.90 a day adjusted for purchasing power and inflation) and although many still starve we throw away over 33% of all the food we produce – a staggering third of it amounting to 1.3 billion tons of food waste each year.
Above: Just how much space do 8 Billion people take up on earth?
Even more difficult to believe is this: if we were to hypothetically assume each person on earth, as the norm, were an adult of average large size (200lb/90kg) and we placed eight billion of those (todays global population), shoulder to shoulder, the cube of standing people will stretch 25×25 miles (625 square miles) or 40x40km (1,500 square kilometers). That would be a larger area than the current living population on earth as half of them are really children, but suffice to say the entire planet would fit into an area the size of Easter Island, or Mauritius, or Samoa, or Guadeloupe. Luckily we can stretch over 57 million square miles or 148 million square kilometers of which about 43% is habitable land. This is serious food for thought!
Food supply
We have on this earth, more than enough space for each of us to live (and flourish) – separately and not compounded on top of each other in cities. We are, however, encouraged to move ever inward towards big cities, either for convenience sake, or out of necessity. This is economic as it really is more efficient and cheaper to provide bulk water, food and services to concentrated populations; it is simply more practical. Yet, this rapid urbanization during the last century has been the result of our industrial era technology; and technology changes and societal migration too.
In 1862 when President Lincoln signs legislation establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture 90% of the US population were farmers, today they comprise fewer than 2%. We can be thankful to technology for creating these efficiencies over the centuries (in fact fertilizers made from nitrogen from ‘fossil fuels’ created much of these gains) but we have better more sustainable technologies available today.
Yet, today, all around the world, the few farmers we have are being discouraged to farm organically and because of changing (and manipulation) of climate, farmers are selling their land to large corporations. And others, like the Dutch farmers, are forced to reduce growing food by a third to meet climate goals. It is hard to believe but the second largest food exporter by value in the world is the tiny country of the Netherlands – $83bn (the largest being the US at $161bn) and yet these super efficient farmers are legally forced to produce less food. That means less food to feed the 8 billion others on the plant who are not Dutch. The world of trade-offs make for very complicated decisions and outcomes.
Pesticides and heavy metals are being sprayed onto food and into the air via chem trails. Cattle and other animals are being vaccinated with steroids and harmful hormones.
Hope
If one stands outside and look in at the situation we would almost certainly come to the conclusion that indeed, there are too many people on earth. If one continues to look at things from a third dimensional perspective, i.e. from a place of disconnection from our Source, one could continue to think in such a fashion. Our world is created with more than enough resources to sustain life, and it keeps renewing itself – so there will always be enough for everyone; we live in a world of abundance and what is required is a mindset of abundance.
One thing humans have in abundance is ingenuity to drive innovation.